


The Scar

by Lykegenia



Series: Kitten - Cullen x Maighread Trevelyan [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Cullen's Sexy Back, Dealing with past trauma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Nonspecific Female Inquisitor, Romance, Scars, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-07
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-12-12 12:33:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11737125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lykegenia/pseuds/Lykegenia
Summary: "Across the room, Cullen stood with his back to her, already divested of boots, breeches, and the antique bear-fur mantle he had turned into a badge of office. As she watched, he drew his heavy linen shirt over his head."





	The Scar

**Author's Note:**

> Please note the original version of this fic was 10x the angst and not nearly as much fluff. 
> 
> An elaboration of an idea that came to me admiring a certain painting of our favourite Commander done by Kawareen on tumblr.

The candlelight guttered. The curtains to the balcony overlooking Skyhold’s courtyard were drawn against any prying eyes – Bull, or possibly Sera – who might want to idle time wondering about the Inquisitor’s private life. To the north, however, the windows facing the sheer, jagged peaks of the Frostbacks were thrown open to the night, straight to the pitted face of Satina hanging low on the horizon. A draught blew in, filtered through the layers of magic that cushioned the fortress against the winter, carrying the scent of clean snow to twine with the smoke in the grate. But it was not the wind that made the Inquisitor shiver.

She had turned to take off her seal ring – the mark of station with which she signed all Josephine’s documents and petitions – and lay it in its place to be put on the next morning. But then, when she straightened and raised her hands to begin on the buttons that held her shirt in place, they froze, her mind wiped blank of the command.

Across the room, Cullen stood with his back to her, already divested of boots, breeches, and the antique bear-fur mantle he had turned into a badge of office. As she watched, he drew his heavy linen shirt over his head, and the low, flickering cast of the candlelight threw into sharp relief the shifting landscape of corded muscle that rippled across his shoulders before running in two smooth columns from the bottom of his ribcage to the top of his hips. He inhaled, and the shadows shrank in the hollows of his spine, only to expand again as a sigh puffed between his lips and the shirt was tossed onto a chair set against the wall.

The sight made her throat constrict.

She knew his body. She had admired him as he faced her, the trim lines of his soldier’s body below a wickedly curving mouth and eyes whiskey-rich with heat, broad arms that held her close as she kissed him. The muscles that so entranced her now had so many times flexed beneath her palms as she held him close, driving the force of their pleasure as breath mingled with sweet words and tongues and teeth. There was a scar, she knew, that pulled a long line across from his left shoulder to the point of his right hip. It was one of many, a ghost of past struggles that still haunted him. After their first time, when her fingertips had discovered and traced its length in languid curiosity, her mind still fogged with satiation, he had stolen her hand away, kissed it, and curled her back tight against his chest to keep her from reaching for it again. She couldn’t blame him, but she had wanted to cry.

Until this moment, she had never actually _seen_ it.

Cullen’s head turned at her halting approach, marking her steps out of the corner of his eye, a frown dimpled at the corner of his mouth. The movement stretched the sinews of his neck like the taut drawstring of a bow. The candle flame burned lower.

“What’s wrong?” He half-turned towards her, her silence bringing out the worry that hovered ever near the surface, eager to protect. She felt the guard flounder as his eyes followed the stretch of her hand reaching out, still hidden in his blind spot, to lace her fingers under his.

“Is this alright?”

Confusion. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

 _Does he not know?_ Maker, had he not realised all this time what he was doing?

“It’s just that I never… I mean, you never…” The thought escaped in a nervous giggle that quirked his lips up at the corners.

“What?”

“Is this alright?” she repeated. With only the slightest hesitation, her other hand found his waist, smoothing over the broad plane of muscle there until her fingers moulded exactly to the shape of him.

“Yes, that’s – Maker…” The words dissolved into a groan, a note plucked by the pressure of her fingers. Lulled by his warmth, dazzled by the patter of freckles that dusted his skin, she tilted forward until she rested against the flat of his shoulder blade, closer than he’d ever let her get before.

“You should really get some of these knots out.”

“What’s brought this on?” he asked, bemused. His muscles shifted under her forehead as he tried to twist around, and a faint tug pulled on the hand he still held – an attempt to get her to face him.

She only shook her head and worked her fingers higher.

The scar made a perfect diagonal. It was faint, a thin, rough white line of ruined tissue that dented the flesh on either side like a belt cinched too tight around the waist. Her fingers trembled over it, uncertain, remembering that first night when she had all but been told she could not touch, wondering if the rule still held.

“Is this alright?” Full of trepidation, pressing her fingers to the mark.

His only answer was her name, breathy, tense, and whether it was a sign to stop or a plea to keep going she could not tell, so she moved her hand away.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

Would her worry sound stupid aloud? That he couldn’t see her made it easier, but every second of her hesitation wound the shadows tighter along his spine.

“I’ve never seen your back before,” she settled on eventually. Voice steady, even breaths. _It’s not a big deal._

“You must have – surely?” Bewilderment knotted his voice.

“Not like this – at night – without the armour.” She swallowed. “You hide it from me.”

Silence.

He held himself tense, his hand curled around hers, alarmed that she would hide her face away after such a declaration. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I didn’t want to pry.” _I know what you’ve been through._ “I - I didn’t want to push you.”

A sigh, laden with pain for pain caused in ignorance. He caught her free hand, closing it in a palm rough with callouses before drawing it around to his chest to make a proper embrace of her fumbling. When he brought her knuckles to his lips, she stiffened.

“Forgive me,” he said, and kissed her hands again. “I never thought… And I certainly never meant you to think that – that I didn’t trust you.” The last was added in a broken whisper, as if the very thought of it sent the air twisting from his lungs.

“Then why?”

He let out an uneasy chuckle. “I don’t know if you noticed, my dear, but I am rather fond of looking at you, and touching you, and both those things are a fair bit easier to do when you’re standing _in front_ of me.” His fingers flexed against her wrists. “But if I had known…”

Soothing, the broad pads of his thumbs rubbed patterns along the back of her hands, and for a while they stood, wrapped in each other and the tender silence of the night that drifted around them, until she finally plucked up her courage and tilted her head to brush a kiss against his shoulder, just shy of the scar, where his armour had pressed red marks into his skin. The muscles jumped under her lips.

He purred. “That feels good.”

“Where did you get this?” she asked daring to brush her fingers along its length.

“That one? It’s old – I don’t quite remember,” he said, craning backwards to look. “Nobody’s, uh, asked about it before.”

She buried closer between his shoulder blades, slipping her hands free to trail along his torso, heart swollen with the gift implied in his words. She was the first – the first to ask, the first to see. The first to be trusted, so naturally the act of turning his back hadn’t even registered to him. And now he shivered under the lazy ministration of her fingers, hummed and hissed as she peppered kisses along the arc of his spine.

“I want to know about all of them,” she declared.

The rich tumble of his laugh sent pulses of heat vibrating to the tips of her fingers as he undertook to disentangle them, and turned to face her at last.

“I would like that,” he murmured, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “But first, my dear, I have to say – you’re still wearing far too many clothes.”

“Oh, am I?” with a deliberate glance downward, she set her hands once more to the buttons on her shirt and stepped back towards their bed, smirking as he followed on.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments appreciated :)


End file.
